8. Jonas
8
Jonas
“ W hat do you mean, Hi mom? ” Felicity asks, eyes wide.
My mom glances behind her into the hallway, then steps in fully and closes the office door.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Her voice is low and furious.
“You said your mom is a record executive.” Confusion mars her brow and she draws back, away from me.
“She is.”
“My wife is Maureen Baxter of BXT Records,” Mom snaps. “Joey is our son.”
My eyes slide closed and I scrub my mouth, swallowing down a groan. “Mom, how many times have I asked you to call me Jonas? No one calls me Joey anymore.”
“I’m your mother, I’m allowed.”
“I don’t understand,” Felicity whispers. “Have I been sleeping with my boss’s son? Did you know Hannah’s my boss?”
I straighten up to my full height and stretch my hands out.
Oh, fuck, this is going to take some detangling.
“Yes. Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?” Mom huffs, hands on her hips.
“I know you’re the Dean of Humanities and whatever, and I know that included the English department. I didn’t think you interacted much or anything.”
“Oh my god.” Felicity covers her face with her hands. “Jonas, how could you?”
“Excuse me?” Mom rears up. “How could you ? Jonas is twenty-four.”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“Twenty-five,” she corrects.
“Twenty-five! I’m not a child.” I step up in front of Felicity, who’s incoherently mumbling into her hands. “Don’t berate her as if she should’ve known better.”
Mom draws back, blinking. “Joey, she’s almost forty. She was almost married. You’re still living with the band in a tiny rental and playing gigs all over the place trying to make your third of the rent. What can you possibly have in common?”
“I’m thirty-five,” Felicity says.
“I have no problem paying my rent, ma. I’ve been independent since I was sixteen. Something you seem to keep forgetting, always treating me like I’m still a child.” Irritation clips my words. “You forget that while you and mom spent my childhood running wild in LA and Hollywood, I was largely left to raise myself.”
“That’s not true,” she draws back, hand at her throat. “We gave you everything. Private tutors for school, music lessons with some of the best in the business, freedom to be whoever you wanted to be. Permission to dress however you wanted to dress.” She stares pointedly at my outfit and painted fingernails. “Hell, your mom’s even given you a place in her company. All you had to do is finish school.”
“I never asked for those things!” I explode, voice rising. “I didn’t ask to be brought up in the shadow of the rich and famous. And while I’m grateful for the musical education I received and the opportunities you’ve both offered me, neither one of you ever stopped to ask me what I wanted out of life. You just… assumed.” My gaze slides to Felicity. “And you know what they about assumptions.”
Mom shakes her head, like she can’t deal with me right now and turns her attention back to Felicity.
“Is this the younger man you were—The one with sta—” Mom stops short, closes her eyes. “Oh god. I told you age was just a number. I encouraged you to live it up.”
Then she breathes deep and tries again.
“I thought you said it was a one-time thing. That you didn’t have contact with him. When did you know you were sleeping with my son?”
“Right now!” Felicity sinks back against the desk with her arms crossed. “I had no idea he was your son. Not when I met him at the wedding and not when he enrolled in my class.”
“Wait. You’re one of her students? ” Mom hisses, her eyes practically popping out of their sockets. “One of the classes you’re taking this term is hers?”
I wince, my mouth falling open to explain but both mom and Felicity are going back and forth at a fast, high pitch and my phone goes off, screeching out the guitar riff from ‘Nothing but a Good Time’.
“I’ve got to go,” I say, sighing. “I need to be across campus and on stage for a sound check. Can we please table this discussion until after the show? I think we could all do with a drink and a sit-down chat so we can each be heard.”
“I’ll do you one better,” Mom says, crossing her arms and swiveling her head between Felicity and me. “We can all have a discussion about this first thing tomorrow morning. In my office.”
Then she whirls out of the room and I turn to Felicity. She flinches away from my touch, which cuts deep. But my phone rings again and I know I need to go.
“They’re going to fire me.”
“They won’t.” I infuse steel in my words as I grip her arms. “Do you trust me?”
Her big, brown eyes swirl with hurt as she meets my gaze. “Right now, I’m not so sure. Why didn’t you tell me your mom was a dean here?”
I swipe a hand through my hair and steal back my hat. “Because you already had a list of strikes against me that prevented you from taking a chance on me. On us. I didn’t want to add to the list.”
“So you lied to me instead?”
“I didn’t lie. I was just waiting for the right time to tell you.”
“Yeah? When was that supposed to be? At graduation?”
“That’s not fair.”
“I trusted you, Jonas.” Felicity shakes her head. “And now I’m questioning whether any of it was real.”
“It’s real,” I snap, my control fraying. “This is all real, and if you can find it in you to really trust me — to choose me — I think you’ll see that I may not have gone about all this the right way, but I tried my best. I pursued all the things that make me happy, including you. And I’m ready to face the fallout of whatever comes next. You know why?”
“Why?”
My phone starts ringing again and I jab the button to silence the ringer.
“Because I’m choosing to be true to myself. I’m choosing to fight for my happiness. Are you brave enough, darling, to you fight for yours?”
* * *
I’m late for sound check, which earns me a dirty look from Kelsey and a curious glance from Iwan as I plug my guitar in and get started.
“You’re late.” Kelsey frowns. “We were calling you.”
“Sorry, I was…” Caught with my face planted between the legs of the woman I love. By my mom. Like a goddamn teenager. “Dealing with a personal thing.”
She sighs heavily, then swirls her drumsticks and peers closer at me.
I’m wrestling with my twisted guitar strap, frowning and frustrated as I jab the cables in and nearly trip over my own two feet as I step up to the mic.
“You alright?” Iwan asks, arm outstretched to steady me.
“Fine,” I bite out.
No, I’m not fine. My fingers are trembling, my vocal chords are tight, and fuck, I feel heat behind my eyeballs.
I’m not a child.
I’m not going to fucking cry.
But I’ve just had to rush out of my—what is Felicity to me? My girlfriend? Not exactly. My lover? Makes it sound tawdry.
I shrug my shoulders, shake my head. Close my eyes for a second and breathe.
The word that comes to me is mine.
Felicity is mine. My future. My heart.
And I’ve just left her.
Rushing out of her office in the middle of a moment of need, leaving her shocked and processing while uncertainty rolls in my gut and terror rips through my heart to come do this . Come sing and perform and act like there’s nothing wrong. At a gig that’s important, but not nearly as important as my future wife.
From the moment I saw her, I knew she was special. I knew she was mine.
But I don’t know if she’s ready to choose me.
“Jonas,” Kelsey hisses. “What are you doing?”
My eyes pop open and I look around.
Yes. What am I doing? What the hell am I doing?
“I might’ve just lost her,” I murmur. “What the fuck am I doing here?”
“Well, mic works.” Iwan coughs as my voice reverberates through the off-campus pub and out to the crowd of students milling around the space.
“Jonas?” Kelsey’s voice is full of concern as she rises from her seat.
I turn, eyes wide open for the first time in a long time.
To thine own self be true.
Then with a deep breath, I stretch my hand out and mouth that I’m fine. Then I wave Iwan over and look at my bandmates. We’ve been together for a few years now, and we all play because we love music and we get along well. None of us were in this to chase fame or fortune, but we did it because we’re good at it and it was a good way to make some side cash.
But maybe it was time to move onto other things.
In a few weeks, I’ll have enough credits to graduate. I don’t care about taking part in the ceremony even though my moms will probably insist I do it. But I do care about what happens after that.
And I finally know.
“Can we change it up, guys?” I pull out my phone and open up a text message. “I want to do a short set. The best of set.”
“What’s going on?” Kelsey asks. “Are you sick or something?”
“It’s that time, Kels.” I say, blinking up at her. “Time to pass the baton.”
They know what I mean. I’ve been talking about quitting the band for months, focusing on finding the talent instead of being the talent.
“Right now?” Iwan glances around the student filled pub. “Not exactly the vibe for a farewell tour.”
“This is where a great many people get started,” I counter, tapping out a text and firing it off to several key people. “And for once, I can use my name and connections for something that doesn’t just benefit me, but others too. We can leave a legacy here, guys. Raise the funds for a new performing arts center and connect with more local musicians.”
“Couldn’t come up with this plan any earlier?” Kelsey grumbles.
“We literally have three hours until showtime,” Iwan warns.
“We can do it.” I grin. “Have a little faith. Sometimes the best things in life take you by surprise and you just have to roll with it.”